At WalMart, in the arts and crafts aisle (usually near the office products/supplies aisles) there is a ten pack of very good art brushes with blue handles, marketed under the brand name “Simply”. There are chisel tips, tapered tips, in varying widths which- in my recent experience- make for excellent detail brushes for hand painting. Cedarwoodron
Thanks for that tip Ron,
I’m getting a pack on my next visit to “Wally World” as I need more paint brushes. Cool factor is that acrylic or water base paints are not very harsh on inexpensive paint brushes so if they’re properly cleaned after each use, they last through many uses. Although I airbrush mostly with solvent based paints, I prefer to weather and paint small items with acrylic paints like Polly Scale or Badger Model Flex.
When I take a break from painting passenger car shells and locomotives, I’m going to focus on painting a batch of undecorated figures that I have using the Brifayle technique used on this website:
How fine a detail do you want to paint?
Faces on an HO figure?
Go pick up your cat, cuddle it for a minute, and then let it go.
Take one of the hairs that it leaves behind on your shirt, glue it to a toothpick, and you will have the finest brush possible.
ROAR
No need to try that extreme. [:P]
Actually for detailing HO figures and/or nooks and crannies on rail equipment I use #00, #01, and #1 sized paint brushes. The high end versions have become more expensive. Years ago you could buy “high end” small tipped brushes for $3 to $5. With today’s economy, those prices can sometimes be difficult to come by, especially in art supply or hobby stores.
Although I keep in mind that “You get what you pay for” there are situations in which a cheaper tool can do the job ( at least for a certain number of uses ) for a while before it wears out. I will only be painting about 20 or so figures with acrylic paint, so I should be able to get the job done with these brushes
They also have a 25 pack of various sizes for less than $5.
Steve S